Near the end of the week, I’ll usually post a “week ahead” post that aims to just give you a snapshot of what’s coming up so you can stay on track. The welcome to the class post kind of walked you through last week and up to today, when you’ll be publishing your literacy narratives as pages on your WordPress sites (and then publishing a reflective blog post about the writing process). If you’re not going to have the literacy narrative published before tomorrow morning (August 27), please send me an email letting me know when you do expect to have it published.
By Sunday, you should publish your first side quest assignment, creating a square avatar image that will replace all those images of Thor’s underpants on the Student Sites page. Follow the link above to the assignment post for full instructions.
If you did not read “Rhetorical Situations” before class yesterday, please do read it this week. In our next synchronous class session, our discussion will focus on two main topics:
Rhetorical situations, and in particular identifying the rhetorical situation of the game Depression Quest (which you’ll play before class)
Beginning to develop our working definitions of a game and play.
By class on Tuesday, you’ll have already read a number of different definitions of game presented in two different essays by Jane McGonigal (the one linked above and also the introduction to Superbetter, which will be due next week on Tuesday). You will have also listened to the 99% Invisible podcast linked above analyzing the game Monopoly. We’ll talk about all those texts, paying special attention to what they say about the power and purpose of games and how they define that term. So as you read and listen, take notes about those definitions and think about which ones make the most sense for you.
I hope that’s all clear and the schedule is making sense to you. I’ll post a week ahead post that’s actually looking ahead to next week in a couple of days, but this one is here just to help keep you oriented in the meantime.
Once you have published your literacy narrativeas a page on your site, you’ll need to also publish a post about the narrative that links to the page. That post serves three fundamental functions:
it provides a compelling preview of your narrative that summarizes your controlling idea in a sentence or two;
it reflects on what you have learned in the process of writing your literacy narrative;
when your post syndicates to the class site, that constitutes turning in your narrative.
Some questions to consider in your reflection:
What was your writing process for this narrative like? Did it feel strange for you to do the freewriting exercises first? How did the freewriting influence the essay you eventually wrote?
What did you learn about yourself by the end of writing your narrative? Was there anything that you found surprising, or something about yourself that you came to view differently in the process of writing this essay?
What sentence from your essay do you think someone else reading it would identify as the most interesting sentence?
Slack is a collaboration and communication tool that our class uses to work together to share ideas, discuss readings, collaborate on projects, and engage with learning
How Can Slack Help Me?
It’s a place for class announcements, group project work, discussions, and getting help on subjects/topics.
Powerful search — find content, past discussions and answers to frequently asked questions in an instant.
Powerful mobile functionality — stay in the loop on the go with mobile notifications and the ability to send messages & upload files from anywhere.
If we have technical difficulties of some sort, like if Zoom crashes in the middle of class, Slack will be an easy way to find out what's going on.
It's an easy way for you to be in contact with the other students in the class without needing to exchange phone numbers/email addresses.
A Note About Transparency
Slack is built on the premise that transparency — that is, being able to see into different discussions — is essential to learning and great collaboration. In Slack, conversations happen in channels that are typically open and searchable. As a result, these conversations create an open archive of knowledge for everyone. This knowledge bank becomes an important way for us to learn, connect, and collaborate.
Using Slack
Setup
Setup
Install the Desktop and Mobile Apps
If you don’t already have Slack installed on your computer, download the desktop app for Mac or Windows.
If you use your phone or tablet for most of your work, download the mobile app for iOS or Android.
Installing Slack on your mobile device is a great way to keep up with important messages. You can download mobile apps for iOS or Android from the App Store or Google Play.
Signing In
You’ll need to log in to our Slack workspace (see Canvas for the address) using your Temple email address
Fill out your Profile
Add details to your Slack profile, such as:
Your full name
Your display name (how others will @mention you in channels)
This section provides an overview of Slack’s interface controls and basic features. Once you are familiar with what they are, where to find them, and how to use them, you will be ready to dive into the rest of Slack!
A Tour of the Interface
Workspaces
The workspace sidebar shows you which workspaces you are signed into. You might have more than one if multiple courses use Slack, or you also use it for work.
Channel Sidebar
The channel sidebar is where you navigate into your conversations on each workspace. It is divided into sections for channels, direct messages, threads, and apps. Our course has channels for specific types of information- please read through and note the descriptions for each.
Messaging Area
The messaging area is where the action happens! Here you can view and post messages, search, post files, and more.
Search Bar
Type in the search box to quickly find messages, files, channels, and users.
Join Channels
In the Channels section of the main sidebar, you will see a few channels to which you are automatically subscribed. To add additional channels, click the Channels heading, browse or search the directory to find the channel you would like to join, click on it to preview, then click the “Join” button. The channel will be added to your sidebar. If you need to create a new channel, see the section on Creating a New Channel).
Posting Basic Messages in Channels
To post a message to a channel, first select the appropriate channel in the sidebar (if you don’t see the channel you need, follow the directions above). Then, type something in the chat box, and hit Enter. Unless the channel is set as private, your message can be viewed by anyone who visits the channel.
If you want to mention someone to get their specific attention, begin by typing the @ symbol. Keep typing to find their name, and select it from the dropdown list that appears. You’ll know you’re about to notify someone when their name gets highlighted in blue. When you send your message, you’ll send that person a notification.
Sending Direct Messages (DMs)
A key benefit of using Slack is transparency. Best practices for Slack use promote the idea of first searching and/or asking questions in channels, as opposed to private messages. This approach allows other members to see your question and any knowledge shared in response. It is likely that others may have had a similar question and were not as comfortable to ask, or they may gain from hearing the question and associated answers or discussion. The more perspectives at the table, the better the discussion.
When you need to send a message to one person instead of a group, Slack provides traditional instant messaging functionality for you to do so. To send a direct message, navigate down to the Direct Messages section of the main sidebar. If the person is not already on your list, click the + icon, search for the person you would like to message, click on their name, and click GO. Then, type something in the chat box, and press the Enter. Unlike public channels, your direct messages are private between you and the recipient(s).
Note: While DMs are private conversations, sensitive or confidential information should not be discussed.
Search
Messages and files added to Slack are instantly searchable, so you can quickly come back to documents and discussions when you need them. Slack’s robust search functionality enables you to find key information quickly, even inside shared files.
To access Search, type your query in the Search field and hit Enter or Return. Your results will appear in a panel on the right of the Messaging area. You can refine results by channel, person, date, file type and more.
Finding New Activity in Slack
Slack informs you of activity in your channels or conversations in a variety of ways:
In the main sidebar:
When a channel name is bold in the channel list, it means there’s new, unread messages in that channel.
When a channel name is bold with a red badge, it means there are unread messages where you were mentioned.
On your desktop dock icon:
A red circle with a white dot means there is some unread activity in one of your Slack teams.
A red circle with a number indicates direct messages, mentions, or messages containing one of your highlight words.
Through desktop notifications:
By default, Slack will send you desktop notifications only when you receive a direct message or mention. You have the option to adjust these settings to your own preferences.
If you’re not online on your computer, Slack will send you mobile notifications when you receive a direct message or mention. You can also adjust these settings as needed.
In the Activity pane:
The Activity pane lists out your latest mentions, highlight words, and emoji reactions. You can think of this pane as a bit like your Slack inbox. It’s generally a good place to check first when getting caught up in Slack. To access, click the @ icon in the top right corner of Slack.
Channels: Where collaboration happens
Channels: Where collaboration happens
The true power of Slack comes from having conversations organized into public channels that anyone can join. This transparency means it’s quick to find out what’s happening.
Public vs Private Channels
Public channels: Can be browsed and joined by anyone in the workspace. Public channels are denoted with a # in Slack. Searching a workspace will return results from all public channels on your workspace (even if you’re not a member of that channel). Workspace members can join and leave public channels at will.
Private channels: Can only be viewed and joined if you’re invited by an existing member of the channel. Private channels are denoted with a lock icon (🔒). Search will only return results from private channels of which you are a member — even if you’re an administrator. Private channels should be reserved for group projects and other topics that are not for the entire team’s eyes.
Creating a New Channel
Before you create a new public channel for discussion topics on Slack, consider this:
Search first! There might be a channel setup already for the same purpose as the one you are trying to create.
To create a channel, press the + button next to the “Channels” heading in the main sidebar. Select whether this will be a public or private channel.
Adhere to the Center’s channel naming structure. By naming our channels in a consistent and predictable way, team members can more easily browse channels and quickly identify which ones they need to join.
Include a channel purpose. This will communicate why the channel exists, what the appropriate use is, and help others determine whether they should join.
Invite others to your new channel when you first create it, or later by using /invite or clicking the invite others link at the top of the channel. Because people may not notice a new channel right away, it may also help to message them privately.
Use groups conversations (up to 8 people) instead of channels for temporary, quick, or ad hoc conversations.
Make Slack Work for You
Make Slack Work for You
Now that you know the basics, get to know some key messaging features to make Slack work for you. Remember, it is a tool designed to help you — not run your life! This is only a small sampling of what you can do with Slack, so if you are interested in learning more, be sure to visit the Slack Help Center.
Starring Channels & Conversations
To prioritize the things that are important to you, we recommend starring a handful of your favorite channels, or conversations with people you communicate with often, using the star icon in the upper left hand corner of the message area. Your starred channels will appear at the top of the main sidebar so you can easily check them more frequently, while scanning others only once or twice a day. To star a channel or conversation, first navigate to it from your sidebar. Then, click the star icon right below the name of the channel at the top of the app. To unstar a channel or conversation, click its star icon again.
Pinning
Pinning is a great way to highlight important files, posts, or messages in a channel so they are easily referenced later, or so that newcomers to the channel can find them right away. To pin something, hover over the message, click the [•••] icon and select “Pin to channel”. To view all the pinned items in a channel, click the “Show Channel Details” icon at the top of the channel, then expand the “Pinned Items” section.
Stars
Stars are a great way to bookmark any Slack message or file for later. Your Starred Items can also be used as a simple to-do list: items appear in the order you star them, and you can un-star to remove a task from your list. To star a message, hover over it and click the gray star icon. To star a file, click More actions and select Star file.
Reminders
Super busy or worried you will forget a message? Set reminders for yourself or other members of your team for important meetings, to-do items, or anything you might need to come back to later.
You can set a reminder in a few ways:
Open the shortcuts menu to create a reminder for yourself.
Click the three dots icon next to any message to remind yourself to come back to it later.
Type the /remind slash command in the message field to create a custom reminder for yourself, other members, or a specific channel.
Emoji
Emoji are a great way to quickly respond to messages and can be useful for things like voting, checking off to-do items, showing excitement, or just for fun. They can also be placed in your messages to convey tone, and make your messages more impactful.
Adding emoji “reactions” onto a message is a great way to keep the noise down in channels. To add an emoji reaction, hover over a message and select the “Add reaction” icon and choose an emoji.
Notification Settings
Slack enables you to fine-tune your notifications so you can focus on your highest priorities. It might take a bit of trial and error to adjust the settings to your liking.
Adjusting Default Notification Settings
Your default setting for notifications is set to “Only direct messages and highlight words”, which means desktop and push notifications are only sent when you receive a direct message, or when one of your chosen highlight words is used in a channel that you have open.
To change the default setting, click on the name of the workspace at the very top of your Slack sidebar, then choose “Preferences”, then “Notifications”.
Adjusting Channel-specific Notifications
Some channels are more important than others. You can customize your notification settings for any channel, depending on how actively you want to keep up with that conversation.
To change notifications for a particular channel, click the gear icon at the top of a channel, then choose Notification Preferences.
From this screen, you can choose to receive desktop notifications for all activity, only mentions, or turn off notifications completely.
You can also choose how you want to receive push notifications on your mobile phone.
You can mute a channel to turn off all visual indicators of unread activity in a channel (except if you are @mentioned).
Tip: If you feel like you are getting too many notifications, you probably need to adjust your settings on a per channel basis.
Files
You can upload files such as images, documents, or presentations to Slack in a few easy ways:
Click on the button on the left hand side of the message box
Drag and drop your file from your device into a channel
Copy an image from online, then use Ctrl/Cmd + V to paste it in
On mobile, tap the file attachment icon in the chat box to upload a file, or tap the photo icon to upload images
Be Kind to Others
Be Kind to Others
Slack offers a lot of control over how and when you choose to receive messages, however we also need to be aware of how much we are demanding attention from others. To avoid inadvertently causing a lot of noise for teammates, here are a few tips and matters of Slack etiquette that are worth pointing out:
Use channels: In most cases, if you just have a general, non-urgent question or want to provide a quick update, just post your message in the appropriate channel without mentioning anyone. Your colleagues will see your message when they’re catching up on their work and respond accordingly.
Mention people through their display name (@Johnny): This can be used to get someone’s attention in a channel, or to loop someone into a conversation. They will most likely be notified right away, so do not mention to include someone unless it’s important that they are pinged. Avoid using continuously or routinely after the initial mention.
Thread discussions using the “Start a Thread” icon (💬) so that conversations stay organized and focused, and to reduce scrolling in main channels.
@channel: This will notify every member of the channel, online or offline. While it’s useful for important announcements, it can quickly be distracting if abused. Students should generally only use @channel in smaller channels, like group project channels for example.
@here: This will notify every person who is currently online in Slack. While it’s useful for getting a quick answer from people who are around, it can also be distracting and create noise for others. Use @here in smaller channels or if the situation is urgent.
Stay on topic: If you find yourself veering off topic for a while, you may want to consider moving to another channel, creating a new channel or starting a group message. This will minimize distractions to others.
This week let's play a game with drawing! Sort of like last week, when you combined two different photos in order to make a new thing, this week you'll combine an actual physical object with something you draw on a sheet of paper -- it's a game that invites you to see the objects in the world around you in a new, more creative manner.
Christoph Niemann is an illustrator, artist, and author whose work regularly appears in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and elsewhere. He’s got a mixed media series that he calls “Sunday Sketches,” in which he takes some object from his surroundings and creates a sketch on the page around it. Some of the best such works he’s included in his book entitled Sunday Sketching.
Some examples from Niemann’s Tumblr:
Headphone Gorilla
Paperclip Beach Chair
Cat Book
Ear Bud Pipe
Avocado Mitt
Toilet Paper Tank
You can see that each of these pieces is an actual three-dimensional tangible object placed into a drawing on paper to transform that object into something new. Niemann then photographs the resulting sketch to create a two-dimensional artifact.
For your fifth side quest assignment, I want you to create your own Sunday sketch in a similar style.
Take a picture of your sketch and publish it as a post.
Give your post a funny or witty title.
Write a paragraph or two in which you explain the process whereby you came up with the idea for your Sunday sketch and the choices you made in realizing that idea as an actual sketch.
Include a link back to this prompt and tag it “sq5”
Find a relatively large empty space. Take your backpack, messenger bag, or whatever sort of bag you carry around with you regularly, empty all the contents out, and arrange them carefully so that they represent a visual snapshot of the stuff you tote around with you on a normal day. Then take a clear photo showing your bag and the stuff and upload it to your site.
Note that like the avatar or the literacy narrative, this too is a type of autobiographical composition. If you have something in your bag that is private, embarrassing, or for some other reason you don’t want it in the picture then make the editorial decision not to include it. Or vice versa: if you would like to assume a certain kind of persona then you might consider including items in your catalog that might be less than fully true.
Add some text to your post listing the items represented in your photo, preferably adding in a bit of explanatory and/or funny commentary along the way. This can be a paragraph of text or a list or whatever format seems most appropriate for you. When these sorts of posts are done by publications, like say The Verge or Timbuk2, they are often not so subtle efforts at product placement but for our purposes there is no reason for you to engage in such advertising games.
Along with the photo and your description of the items, include a paragraph reflecting on what it was like to craft a self-portrait through this photograph. How actually representative is this image of you as a person? What sorts of choices did you make in order to create the image? What was challenging about this assignment? Is representing yourself in a catalog of the stuff in your bag a type of writing? Why or why not?
As you play through Gone Home for class on Tuesday, I want you to liveblog your experience playing. Liveblogging is an informal sort of freewriting — while you are in the midst of playing the game, just notice whatever seems interesting to you and pause periodically to note those observations in your blog post.
The game begins on the front porch, with a brief puzzle to get in the front door, and sets up a little background for the main character and serves as a simple tutorial for basic game mechanics, so launch the game and play through that opening section, then pause the game and open your dashboard. Write a new blog post which starts by announcing that you’re beginning to play through the game and links back to this post (not just the course site, but this specific post). Tag your post with “sq3,” “gone home” and “liveblog” plus whatever other tags you’d like. (You can add tags in the post editor page, in the section labeled Tags, which should be in the sidebar just beneath categories and just above the featured image area.)
Write a paragraph (or a few sentences) responding to that opening sequence. Again, whatever is interesting to you about it — visual and audio style; emotional reactions; how the game establishes setting, time, and character. Perhaps especially think about how the game establishes character given that there is only one person present in the narrative and it’s the first person narrator — without dialog and other traditional methods of defining character, how do the game designers go about doing so? You might make predictions or note expectations for where this game will head.
Publish the post. Once you’ve published your post, you might check out the other students’ posts and see how they responded to the opening sequence — please leave comments on their liveblog posts responding to observations they made!
When you’re ready, go back to the game and play on. When you find a scene that seems particularly cool or beautiful or interesting, take a screenshot and/or write up a brief note about it on your liveblogging post — either leave a comment on your own post or edit the post and add a timestamp plus a few lines of commentary on the end of your post.
Check in periodically with your peers’ responses to the game and pay attention to whether you have similar or different reactions. Leave comments on your peers’ posts too, responding to their observations.
Let's play a game with photo editing this week! For this week, you'll make a combophoto, which combines two different photos to create a new image.
Stephen Mcmennamy is an Atlanta artist and Creative Director at the advertising firm BBDO. He first came to my attention when I saw his series of “combophotos” that splice together two different images to form a surreal new creation.
Here are a few examples from him:
Cauliflower + Poodle
Spaghetti + Paintbrush
Guitar + Bridge
Take a few moments to look through the images he’s posted on his site linked above or on his Tumblr or his Instagram. Then create your own square combophoto and publish it to your site. You can take your own photos, but probably you’ll want to use CC_licensed images you find on Flickr — make sure you give credit to the originals that you modify to create your combophoto.
The level of technical aptitude for this assignment is actually relatively small, just simple cropping and resizing. The greater part of the challenge is thinking creatively and finding images that you can work with. That said, note that Mcmennamy comes up with ideas and then specifically stages photos to combine, and he seems to often spend significant amounts of time shooting and selecting his images. You won’t have lots of time, models you can hire, or expensive photo equipment to work with, so I don’t necessarily expect your final images to be as polished and perfectly aligned as his are. More important is for you to be playful and come up with images that combine to create something funny or witty or striking.
To edit the two photos together, you can use whatever photo editing software you’d like. Pixlr is a good free web app. (Pixlr X is a freemium service so it's free to use but they might make it look like you need to pay for something -- you only need to pay for more "advanced" options, which you won't need for this assignment.) Adobe Photoshop is also available for you to use on the computers in the Media Library on the 4th floor of the Woodruff Library, if you're on campus.
Once you have your image, publish it in a post on your class site. Don't forget to give it a funny or witty title! Tag your post "sq4"
Write a paragraph about how you went about choosing the two images you combined and why. What challenges did you face as you created your combophoto? What do you think your final image conveys?
Welcome to the class. I am really looking forward to working with each of you this semester.
Please check out the class welcome module on our Canvas site.
Your homework before we meet synchronously in person via Zoom on Tuesday:
Read over this website very carefully as it constitutes the syllabus for this course. Note that the syllabus page contains a number of subpages. There’s a list of the texts and services you’ll need this semester, our learning outcomes, the course policies (note that you can click on headers to expand each section), and how grading will work this semester. You can also find the schedule for the semester and a list of the side quests and major quests you’ll complete over the course of the semester. There is also a page of resources that should be helpful to you.Once students begin publishing posts to their own sites, those posts will syndicate here. My posts are published here. And eventually there will be a category page added to the menu bar where we’ll host the podcast series that you’ll each have a hand in creating.
Add this site to your bookmarks. Make certain that you can find your way back here, because you’ll be spending a lot of time visiting these pages over the course of this semester.
Respond to this survey so I can get to know you a little bit better.
Sign up for a basic, free WordPress site. (See further information below about choosing a name for your site.) Note: If you already own a domain and server space, come talk to me to determine whether you can use that instead of creating a site on WordPress.com. Make sure you get to the point where your website is published and you can see the site itself, not just a blank page indicating that the URL has been reserved.
Leave a comment on this post asking a question about the syllabus. Put the URL for the WordPress site you created in the “website” line on the comment form. If you want to receive an email every time a new post goes up on this site, check the “Subscribe to site” box before you submit your comment.
You can choose a URL based on some version of your name (i.e., janestudent.wordpress.com or johndoe.wordpress.com) if you’d like. Using a version of your name has the advantage that you will be building a digital identity on the web based on your name, which can be really helpful. On the other hand, it also means that this site that you’re building will likely come up near the top of web searches for your name, so consider whether that is something you would like.
If you don’t want to publish your coursework on a site with a version of your name, you can also use some sort of pseudonym for your domain name.
It is also perfectly acceptable for your domain name to be a short word or phrase that is easy to remember and spell, and which speaks to some interest of yours or an aspect of your character (for example: my friend Audrey Watters, a noted educational technology scholar and researcher, publishes a site called hackeducation.com; Tanine Allison, a professor of Media Studies here at Emory who published her first book entitled Destructive Sublime: World War II in American Media recently, uses destructivesublime.com as her domain name; or one of my favorite art and design blogs is called thisiscolossal.com). If you’re going to choose a title or phrase as your domain name, make sure you think about it very carefully so you don’t show up on one of those lists of the most unfortunate domain names ever, like the design firm called Speed of Art that ended up with a domain name that sounds like it’s about flatulence in a swimsuit. Note that in the case of your site, you’ll be publishing a page that’s a subdomain of WordPress.com, so if Audrey Watters were in this class her site might be called hackeducation.wordpress.com.
This is a pre-writing exercise that is designed to help you prepare to complete your first quest, writing the literacy narrative. I’ve adapted this exercise from the Lynda Barry’s “x-page” warmup exercise in the book Syllabus. It should take you 45 minutes to an hour to complete this exercise.
I’m going to describe the steps in text below and I will also include an audio recording of me reading these instructions out loud and pausing for you to write in response. You might find it helpful to play the audio and simply write in a notebook or type on your laptop as you listen instead of having to come back and read text as we go — if nothing else, it might stop you from spending longer on the steps than you need to, so I suggest you try it. If the audio is not helpful for you, for any reason, then you can read the same instructions below.
Audio Prompt for this assignment
Ten Memories
Think back over the course of your life so far and make a list of ten memories that you associate with reading and/or writing. Just take about 3 minutes and make a numbered list of ten memories that come to mind.
Pick One
Then, read over your list and pick the one memory that seems the most vivid to you. Circle it. Then on a new page, write that memory at the top of the page as if it were the title of a story and draw a big X across the page. (If you’re typing on a laptop, the big X is optional)
Twenty Questions
Picture yourself in the memory that you are exploring and then write the answers to the following questions anywhere on the page. Pretend we are having a conversation, so you can see the image but I can’t, so I’m going to be asking you these questions to help me “see” the image too. Read a question and then immediately start jotting down phrases and brief answers to the question. Keep writing for about thirty seconds before moving on to the next question — no detail is too small or unimportant.
Where are you?
What time of day or night does it seem to be?
What season does it seem to be?
Where is the light coming from?
What kind of light is it?
What’s the temperature like?
What does the air smell like?
What are you doing?
Is there anyone else in that place with you?
What are they doing?
Why are you there?
What are some of the sounds you can hear?
What are some of the things you can see?
What’s directly in front of you?
If you turn your head to your right, what’s there?
If you turn your head to the left, what do you see?
What is behind you?
What’s below you and around your feet?
What’s above your head?
What emotions are you feeling in this space?
Once you have jotted answers to those 20 questions on your x-page turn to a new page and freewrite for 10 minutes about that memory. There are no wrong or right things to write about or ways to write about the memory. Just start by elaborating further about any of the details you jotted down on the x-page and then keep writing without stopping about whatever thoughts are coming to your head about that memory. Try not to censor yourself or worry about the quality of what you’re writing. At this stage, all you are doing is generating ideas — you will think about structure and wording later.
Now look back at your original list of ten memories. Are there any other memories that you’d really like to explore further? You don’t need to repeat the entire process described above for the memory (though you can, if it seems like it would be useful) but do jot down some thoughts about any of the other memories on your list that seem worth thinking more about right now.
Building from Memories, Asking Questions
Now that you’ve taken the time to write about one or more of those memories, pause to consider the following questions about your history with reading and writing. They may or may not directly connect with the freewriting you just completed. Jot down brief responses to these questions:
How did you feel about reading and writing as an adolescent — say, during middle and high school? What sorts of experiences did you have as a reader and writing in school?
What are your experiences with social networking sites like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, or others? What do you remember about your first experiences with such sites? Do you text on a smartphone? What sorts of experiences have you had writing to/for people with those sorts of technologies?
What are some of the biggest struggles you have had as a reader and/or writer?
